Brad Delson on Linkin Park’s New Album: ‘There’s a Lot of Guitar Solos’

Linkin Park have never been your traditional act. Start by having two vocalists — one a powerful belter while the other comes from a hip-hop background. Add in a DJ/programmer, and then layer that on top of the traditional guitar, bass and drums. That gives them plenty of space to experiment. But with a new album en route and the guitar heavy ‘Guilty All the Same‘ just hitting the airwaves, it’s not a reach to suggest we may be hearing more guitar than ever from the band.

Guitarist Brad Delson tells Music Radar in a new interview that ‘Guilty All the Same’ is just the beginning. He explains, “There’s a lot of guitar solos on the album. And this is from someone who was quoted early on as saying I hated them.” The guitarist adds that it wasn’t so much that he didn’t care for them as it was that the guitar solos didn’t fit their musical direction. “I shirked guitar solos,” says Delson. “Early on, I felt as though the songs we were making aesthetically didn’t want them. This new batch of songs, to me, always wants solos. I feel like every song has one.”

The guitarist says he feels that ‘Guilty All the Same’ really sets the tone for what’s to come on the album as a whole. “I’ve heard people say about ‘Guilty All the Same,’ ‘Oh, it sounds like their older stuff,’ ‘cause it’s really heavy. But it’s not really like anything we’ve done, either,” says Delson. “The heaviness of the track, and of what you’ll hear on other songs on the album, comes from a raw, visceral place, but it sounds distinctly its own as far as our musical history.”

He adds, “I thought this was kind of funny: Mike [Shinoda] actually described it almost a prequel to ‘Hybrid Theory.’ There’s a lot of records that were influential to us — some hardcore stuff, some heavy, punk-oriented stuff — and that spirit is there. It’s like the record we might have made had we not made ‘Hybrid Theory.’ It definitely goes down a different path, and it is guitar driven — that’s not an accident.”

Though ‘Guilty All the Same’ has arrived at radio, a release date and title has yet to be announced for the new album. However, the disc is expected to surface this summer, coinciding with the band’s upcoming ‘Carnivores’ tour with Thirty Seconds to Mars and AFI. For dates, click the button below.

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